Until the Kimmel Center opened
in December 2001, Philadelphia audiences had
few opportunities to hear orchestras from
the outside world. Kimmel’s management, and
specifically its artistic direction, now imaginatively
handled by Mervon Mehta, is busily putting
that right, and each season now sees a good
assortment of visiting ensembles in its "Great
Orchestras on Tour" series. Some of these
engagements bring us vividly face to face
with the excellences that exist elsewhere;
others remind us equally forcefully how lucky
we are with the orchestra we may call our
own.

That this particular event
fell into the latter category in no way negates
the value of the enterprise as a whole. Comparisons
may be odious, but in a world where the choice
of what and whom to listen to is almost dauntingly
varied, they are at once useful and mightily
illuminating. For the first few minutes of
Michael Tilson Thomas’s Mahler Fifth Symphony,
I thought this was going to be a fine performance.
That little trumpet triplet in the eleventh
measure–often an early indication of conductorial
alertness or the lack of it–was properly hasty,
as directed by the composer. The string textures
of the first funeral-march theme was meticulously
balanced, and cadence phrases were lovingly
and suavely shaped. But that very suavity
turned out to be a warning sign. As the evening
wore on, Tilson Thomas’s reading proved expertly
manicured and very little else. The lovingly
shaped phrases grew increasingly wearisome,
often slowing the proceedings to the point
where one wondered whether the orchestra would
ever get to the next note. There was no hint
that this, like other Mahler symphonies, is
a work that confronts cosmic issues. The grimmer
passages were outwardly dramatic but inwardly
empty. The great scherzo had sparkle but no
real joy. We were afforded scarcely a hint
of the gut-wrenching agonies or the spirit-lifting
celebrations that marked the opening weeks
of Eschenbach’s five-year Mahler cycle, inaugurated
just last month. The overall effect was not
helped by the fairly inevitable conclusion
that the San Francisco Symphony is not remotely
in the same class as our Philadelphians, with
relatively lustre-less strings, and a timpanist
who, in this of all works, either lacked dynamism
or was not allowed by the conductor to exercise
it. But such weaknesses need not be fatal,
as anyone who ever heard some of Hans Rosbaud’s
Mahler and Bruckner performances with orchestras
of the second and even third rank will be
aware. No, the trouble in the end is that,
whereas Eschenbach is an inward conductor,
a truly spiritual musician with the courage
to risk anything in the cause of getting to
the heart of the music he leads, Tilson Thomas
has always been an outward one, and though
there has been much talk lately of his maturation
and artistic growth, I could only conclude
on the evidence of this performance that he
is still an ultimately shallow musician.

The evening had begun, not
with the John Adams piece originally programmed,
but with an orchestration by Robin Holloway
of Debussy’s two-piano suite, En Blanc
et noir. "One reason for orchestrating"
the work, as Michael Steinberg’s characteristically
excellent program note told us, "was
to bring it to a wider audience"–a neat
reversal of Liszt’s motives, a century and
a half ago, in offering his public piano fantasies
based on the operatic themes they were unlikely
to have much chance of encountering in the
theater. In addition to being one of the finest
composers working in England today, Holloway
(who was present to receive a warm ovation
from the audience) is a musician of unusually
broad sympathies and a deep understanding
of the repertoire, and his orchestral treatment
was expert. I did not feel, however, that
the piece really worked in this guise, and
the experience taught me much less about either
Debussy or Holloway than the latter’s brilliant
recent two-piano Gilded Goldbergs did
about both Holloway and Bach. (There’s a fine
recording of this inexhaustibly inventive
piece available on the Hyperion label.)

Altogether, then, March 24
may not have ranked among Kimmel’s most memorable
evenings. But there will be many occasions
in the Center’s full schedule that provide
greater rewards, and this one was as instructive
for what it did not achieve as for what it
did.